~/.Xdefaults vs ~/.Xresources (FAQ item?)

[David I. Schwartz]

hi all -- I after digging around and going in circles, I've decided to
finally ask for help... how do Xdefaults and Xresources differ? I've
seen people claim they're the same, and others claim that Xdefaults is
outdated. Others say that Xresources gets accessed when starting the
window manager, and Xdefaults gets accessed each time an X client is
run. I suspect that various systems set things up differently, but
perhaps there's a universal standard...?

thanks,
Dave

[Russell Shaw]

Xlib Programming Manual P.441

Prior to X11R2, X resource settings were read from .Xdefaults file
in users home directory and optionally on whatever machine the X client
was running on, so multiple files was hard to maintain.

Later on, xrdb program was made to store users resource settings from
in .Xresources into the XA_RESOURCE_MANAGER property of the root window
on the current X server, so all clients connected to the same server has
access to them. If the user hasn't called xrdb to set the property, then
.Xdefaults is read.